Layton Pavilion,

Greenfield, WI

Johnsen Schmaling Architects

Photograph: John J. MacaulayA small architectural intervention embedded in the spatial vacuum of suburbia, the Layton Pavilion functions as a gatehouse connecting a large strip mall parking lot and a walled-in, undevelopable brownfield site used as a provisional public green space along a busy suburban intersection.

Photograph: John J. Macaulay

Photograph: John J. Macaulay

Literally leading from nowhere to nowhere, the pavilion itself becomes a destination that reintroduces the fundamental concepts of spatiality, scale, and materiality to the experientially impoverished realm of the urban periphery. Empty and ominous, it serves as a quiet monument to the richness of the human condition.